At the weekend (Aug 30-31) I helped out my client Fantasy Football Scout by appearing on Danny Kelly’s Season Ticket show on Talk Sport.

My task as ‘The Scout’ was to give Danny and his co-host, the former Stoke defender Danny Higginbotham, fantasy football advice and reveal some intriguing statistics from the Premier Leagues games already played. I even got my own ‘spooky’ intro music ahead of the segment.

You can listen to me talking fantasy football with Danny Kelly here. Click on the 23:30 to 0:00 section, I appear about half way through.

With 2014 half way through I’d thought I’d give an update on my year so far, which has seen me take on a new role with Fantasy Football Scout, help discover new talent for the Glastonbury Festival and interview care leavers.

At the end of 2013 I was promoted by regular client Fantasy Football Scout from community manager to managing editor. In addition to managing the website’s large community, who post more than 10,000 comments a day, I took on more behind the scenes tasks ensuring the site’s regular features and tools are kept up to date. My new role has also seen me take on a greater role boosting the website’s social media presence as well as a regular guest spot on its podcast.

My Fantasy Football Scout role takes up around half my week with the rest of my time available for feature and news writing. This year I’ve written articles for a number of regular clients including Charity Times and Children and Young People Now. This has included a series of features for Children and Young People Now’s annual care supplement, looking at latest trends in children’s care and interviewing care leavers about their often harrowing experiences.

This month also sees me take my regular trip to the Glastonbury Festival for the Neon Filler music website, which I edit. As a judge for the event’s Emerging Talent competition I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this year’s event for the third time since 2011. As with 2013 I aim to take advantage of living within eight miles of the festival site by cycling in each day.

As a journalist of some 16 years now I’ve had a wide variety of press releases pass my way. Some are good, some are bad, some a just a little bit boring. But occasionally us hacks get a press release that quite frankly insults our intelligence. Step forward the Department for Education with news of children’s minister Elizabeth Truss’s policy initiative to improve childcare, writes Joe Lepper.

I was asked on Dec 15, 2012 by BBC 5 Live and then two days later by BBC Radio Sheffield to outline the government’s latest attempt to turn around the lives of families whose lives are blighted by crime, anti-social behaviour, unemployment and truancy.

Called the Troubled Families programme it involves intensive support from council appointed family workers.

The government is meeting 40 per cent of the costs with councils expected to meet the rest. If successful the government claims it can save £9bn a year through reductions in areas such as police, court time and benefit claims. The government’s troubled families tsar Louise Casey is also claiming startling results among families already supported in this way.

But councils and charities have concerns. Here are my two segments. The first for BBC 5Live features me outlining council concerns about the initiative. The second, for BBC Radio Sheffield and in which I appear at the 2 min 20sec mark, was ahead of a phone-in on the issue and looks at local concerns surrounding the scheme.

If you are a broadcaster looking for a media-trained social affairs expert to talk about this or similar issues feel free to contact me anytime on 07731 658672 or joelepper@newsandfeatures.co.uk .

The UK has been battered by torrential rain during November with the west country being particularly badly hit. I’ve enclosed some pictures taken near to my home in Street, Somerset. The rivers and streams have been unable to cope with the downpour, leaving roads closed and lakes where fields once were. I was particularly saddened to see some of the farm animals still out in fields, stranded on what little land remains visable above the water. These pictures were taken between November 23-26, 2012.

The fields between Street and Glastonbury, Somerset. Beautiful but frightening new landscape.

I’ve already presented my favourite five clips of terrible interviewees. This time around I’ve focused on journalists, who from time to time forget some key basics of their job, often with embarrassing consequences. In our list we have those who are guilty of not reading what is in front of them, being poorly prepared and in one case getting far too emotionally involved in an interview. Sit back and enjoy my favourite five terrible news presenting and interviewing moments.

5.The Jimmy Savile text

As soon as BBC Radio Ulster radio presenter Karen Patterson read out this text she should have known she’d fallen into a trap. Not really considering what she was reading she was taken in, hook, line and sinker by this cheeky texter, who makes light of the Jimmy Savile scandal. She comes back later to apologise but the damage was already done. A harsh lesson in the importance of reading what is in front of you properly.

4.Carrie Gracie earns how much?!?

The MP’s expenses scandal was huge, swathes of MPs claiming for erroneous costs to bump up their salaries. But when Carrie Gracie, one of BBC News channel’s presenters, tries to quiz Lord Foulkes about the issue she found herself on the wrong side of some difficult questions. After her questions about MPs salaries Lord Foulkes decides to ask her, as an employee of a publicly funded organisation, how much she earns. The cornered Gracie reveals her quite frankly extraordinary salary of £92,000. Lord Foulkes is shocked, the audience is left shocked and most journalists are left green with envy as the real story of MPs fiddling expenses was forgotten and we were all left wondering whether Gracie was really worth £92,000 of our BBC licence fee money.

3.Paxman gets owned

Its rare that BBC Newsnight present Jeremy Paxman loses an argument but here he loses spectacularly. Paxman was poorly prepared here, quotes wrong figures and makes the assertion that public spending in Wales is the highest per population in the UK, without being able to back it up. His opponent here, Plaid Cymru’s economic adviser Eurfyl ap Gwilym, is able to flex his superior knowledge marvellously, forcing Paxman to dither with bits of paper as he frantically tries to prove his point. Paxman at one point in the exchange even tries to convince himself that London is not ‘officially’ in England as his turmoil worsens. The sight of Eurfyl ap Gwilym quite rightly asking Paxman to “do your homework” is one Paxman’s victims will cherish.

2.Mistaken identity

Guy Goma walked into BBC TV centre expecting to attend a job interview. But one wrong turn and a case of mistaken identity later he somehow found himself live on BBC News being interviewed about technology markets. Where the interviewer really falls down is that she seems to bat away his attempt to explain his predicament and just excepts his understandably lame answers. Among the best moments are when the next journalist paraphrases this job applicant, as if what he has said has any relevance, and the look on Goma’s face when he realises he is live on air.

1.Adam Boulton v Alistair Campbell

This is one of my all time favourite journalistic blunders and shows how even the most experience broadcaster can lose it under pressure. There’s clearly bad blood between Sky’s Adam Boulton and Alistair Campbell, former Number 10 director of communications and Mirror journalist. Campbell milks Boulton’s hatred for him wonderfully, goading the Sky man who foolishly rises to every jibe. Boulton looks like he is fully prepared to lamp Campbell at more than one point. There’s a wonderful sense of beauty as his colleague leaves them to it and the camera moves away with the high pitched Boulton continuing his failed, child-like battle with a master windup merchant.